Sales Engineer

Position Summary

The Sales Engineer is responsible for leading technical sales engagements across CIS sales and operational teams. This role partners with sales leadership, engineering, operations, customers, technology partners, and manufacturers to design solutions, communicate technical and business value, and advance opportunities from discovery through close and operational handoff. The Sales Engineer serves as a customer-facing technical authority and independently owns assigned opportunities, presentations, demonstrations, technical designs, and commercial deliverables. Success requires urgency, sound judgment, attention to detail, and the ability to manage multiple priorities in a high-paced environment while ensuring each proposed solution is technically sound, commercially aligned, and executable.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the technical sales engagement for assigned opportunities from discovery and solution development through proposal, close, and operational handoff.

• Lead customer discovery sessions to identify business objectives, technical requirements, operational constraints, risks, and success criteria.

• Communicate the CIS business model, service capabilities, differentiators, and overall solution value to technical stakeholders, business leaders, and executive decision-makers.

• Deliver technical presentations, solution briefings, demonstrations, and workshops aligned to the customer's business and technical requirements.

• Develop accurate Bills of Materials that account for required hardware, software, licensing, support, subscriptions, professional services, and managed services.

• Create and maintain quotes, proposals, Statements of Work, solution designs, and related sales documentation, ensuring the complete customer requirement and delivery scope are captured.

• Own manufacturer and distributor coordination for product selection, pricing, licensing, deal registration, technical validation, and escalation support.

• Lead the technical response for RFPs, RFQs, and RFIs, including requirements analysis, solution development, compliance review, and final submission content.

• Identify End-of-Life and End-of-Support equipment within customer environments and develop practical modernization and lifecycle recommendations.

• Validate proposed solutions for technical feasibility, interoperability, scalability, supportability, security, and alignment with CIS delivery standards.

• Coordinate with CIS engineering, operations, project management, field services, support, and procurement teams to ensure solutions can be successfully implemented and supported.

• Own the creation and continuous improvement of sales engineering processes, templates, documentation, standards, and customer-facing technical materials.

• Maintain accurate opportunity, activity, solution, and forecasting information within the company CRM and related business systems.

• Provide technical guidance during implementation handoff and remain engaged as needed to resolve scope, design, or expectation gaps.

• Perform other sales engineering and business-support responsibilities as assigned.

Required Skills and Experience

• 3-5 years of direct experience selling, designing, implementing, and supporting Fortinet and Cisco Meraki solutions in customer-facing environments.

• 3-5 years of experience in the telecommunications or information technology industry.

• Demonstrated experience in a sales engineering, solutions engineering, network engineering, technical account, or comparable customer-facing technical role.

• Hands-on experience implementing, configuring, and troubleshooting enterprise networking technologies, including firewalls, routing, switching, wireless, VPN, SD-WAN, and network security.

• Working knowledge of Fortinet and Cisco Meraki product portfolios, licensing models, management platforms, lifecycle considerations, and common deployment architectures.

• Experience developing Bills of Materials, quotes, proposals, Statements of Work, solution designs, and RFP/RFQ/RFI responses.

• Ability to translate business requirements into technically complete and commercially viable solutions.

• Ability to explain complex technical concepts and business value to audiences ranging from engineers and IT leaders to procurement teams and executive decision-makers.

• Excellent written communication, verbal communication, presentation, organization, time management, and attention-to-detail skills.

• Strong proficiency with Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel.

• Demonstrated critical thinking, problem-solving, accountability, and ownership of customer and internal deliverables.

• Ability to work effectively across sales, engineering, operations, project management, support, procurement, and executive leadership teams.

• Ability to manage multiple active opportunities, competing priorities, and deadlines with limited supervision.

• Ability to travel up to 50% based on customer, partner, manufacturer, and business requirements.

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in telecommunications, information technology, computer science, engineering, business, or a related field; equivalent relevant experience will be considered.

• Current Fortinet and Cisco Meraki sales or technical certifications.

• Experience with additional networking and connectivity platforms such as Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, Ericsson Cradlepoint, Juniper, or similar technologies.

• Experience with managed network services, SD-WAN, network monitoring, field services, circuit connectivity, and recurring service offerings.

• Experience with CRM platforms such as Zoho CRM or comparable systems.

• Experience supporting channel, partner, distributor, and manufacturer relationships.

Core Competencies

• Technical credibility and consultative selling

• Customer engagement and executive communication

• Solution ownership and commercial awareness

• Cross-functional collaboration

• Accuracy, documentation, and follow-through

• Adaptability, initiative, and continuous improvement